


All Of This Pain Will Catch Up to You

by ketchupfromyoutube



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:16:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5546921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ketchupfromyoutube/pseuds/ketchupfromyoutube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashton and y/n aren’t functional, secure, or safe. Love is all they have, even though they can’t figure out how to love each other. Just let the bruises heal, and maybe we can start there. Maybe…</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Of This Pain Will Catch Up to You

**Author's Note:**

> *Domestic Violence references are present, nothing graphic, but please keep that in mind.*

A melancholy drip from your beaker, the color of swamp moss, told you everything you needed to know. You got the solution just right. The putrid smell of mingling chemicals coaxed a smile onto your face. The hurricane of sage in your cup started fizzing and foaming like an attack dog.   
You were going to ace this lab. Your lab partner let his pierced bottom lip pop free from under his canines. His blonde hair and pale jaw fidgeted in the corner of your eye. Luke bounced his legs and yanked a loose string from his jeans clean off. He chose to wrap it around his finger instead of helping you with the demo. Squeezed and twirled it until the tip puffed out, lilac and ruddy.   
“Luke, stop that, it’s not good for you,” you ordered softly, eyes still glued to the wispy smoke swirling in your glass. The boy smacked his lips in disappointment but let the blood return.   
“How we looking, nobel prize?” Luke leaned in, referring to you with the nickname all the boys coined for you. The grin was well at home on your cheeks. The tall boy in all black and gentle scruff rested his chin on your head.  
“We are so getting an A.”  
“Safe.” Luke sat up broadly, palm meeting yours in a high five you had anticipated.   
“Yeah, your role in this was fucking crucial Mr. Hemmings,” you deadpanned, sliding the finished product to the center of your table. Your teacher pit-pattered on by your isle, stopping to evaluate with a clipboard digging into her hip. Clad in a high waisted khaki maxi and L.L. Bean polo, she looked both of you over.  
You flashed a bright smile at her, Luke actually waved. Ms. Rhodes nodded at him and cleared her throat.  
“This looks excellent Miss y/l/n, Mr. Hemmings.”   
You knew it did, it was phenomenal.   
With a scribble on her stationary, a peek at Luke, and a scratch at her nose, she walked away. Called over her shoulder,  
“A-plus!”  
“Fuck yes. Did it again nobel, give me some,” Luke muttered, fingers wagging under the table for you to slap.  
The sound of the homicidal school bell curdled throughout the building when your skin slid across his.  
Signals screamed at you in the squeaks of converse on shitty linoleum floors and nervous laughter. All saying the same angsty and arrogant thing.   
School’s out.   
_____________  
Never waver, you knew that much. When you shuffled through a hazy crowd radiating breath and body heat. If asking for something you wanted. Flirting with the motivation to finally tell someone to fuck off.   
You had to find your footing. Keep your backbone. Passersby are itching to rip the vertebrae right out of you. Life is just a simple domino effect as inevitable as rivers are wet. And you will get hurt, so much.    
See those people you’re bumping elbows with? They’re all starving. Famished. Hungry for the stale mash of your skin. The echo of your tinkling bones popping free and shattering on the ground.   
Regrowing them took a lifetime; not all of us had that long.  
You learned to stand strong and not divert your eyes. If you meant it, you had to show it. Anything after that?  
Well, that was the fun part.   
You got to reap the rewards.   
_______  
    “I’m sure it’s not that bad, really.” Michael tried to assure you, the X tattooed on his finger getting lost in his jet black locks. The wind breathed against your clothes, flattening the cotton to your stomach. You only walked faster, lip worried between your teeth and cheeks chewed to the point of mild pain.   
Michael jogged to catch up, headphones smacking his collarbones.   
“Y/n, jesus. I’m telling you, it’s really not that-”  
“You told me the guy checked him!” You shouted, turning to look at the boy with arms thrown out. Like a flightless bird full of fright. Eyes wide and cheeks wine red in a cocktail of worry and fury.   
“Ashton didn’t start the fight…” you continued, leaning into Michael. He just nodded, “Yeah, that’s what I said. And he didn’t.” He replied cluelessly. Like he was curious as to why you were reiterating.    
You gave him an expression as if to say think about it, and tipped your chin downward. Let your palms lay facing up, beneath the jagged grin of his skull t-shirt. Eyes widening with every second it took Michael to decode.  
The second the pieces click, you see him drop his jaw. Those bitten lips tear apart like gum from a shoe, his chest filling with his dramatic intake of air.   
“Oh shit!”  
“No duh!” You replied, already running over in the direction of the locker rooms. Michael was right with you then, not wasting any more time trying to calm you down.   
Ashton didn’t start this fight; got busted and bloodied up by someone who threw the first punch.   
This was bad.   
_____________  
The dirty white concrete walls were being kissed by the evening sun as you and Michael strode down the hall. You bumped into a boy with just showered hair and a fresh jersey, not caring to toss him an apology. You just had to get to Ash.   
And after turning the corner and walking right into the boys’ locker room, you saw him.   
“What....a fucking mess.” You heard Michael breathe, voice chalk full of shock and awe.  
Your fingers wavered like binder paper strewn across black top, nails indenting your lips. “Baby...” you sighed.  
And you got to him, your boyfriend Ash.   
He was sat on one of the benches parallel to the dark green lockers in the middle of the room. About a foot away and slumped forward, he had his absolutely red forearms pressed into his thighs. His arms looked raw with grass burns, biceps as if they knocked into other angry limbs. Blood was brushed in bold strokes across his number 13 jersey. Lined in sticky globs along his jaw. Matted in those golden curls you sang into when the sprinklers cried over your front lawn at midnight.  
The air in your lungs seemed to nosedive to the small puddle of water circling the shower drains.   
“Ashton.” Your voice was clear and loud, but the opposite of strong. Anger pulsating in your chest. In your gut.  
He looked up at hearing your voice, fingers clasped tightly against one another. His eyes had that surprised look about them, like when he got curious or was actually listening to his mother. Please pick up your sister from dance class Ashton, I can’t miss this shift. He’s only gonna listen to you Ashton, he doesn’t respect his mother. You might as well be his father, for fuck’s sake.  
Just as he moved to stand, you shook your head no. Striding over to him in three paces, you reached for his sides as gently as if painting porcelain. Got down onto your knees on the cold, filthy floor and looked up. Your boyfriend was always silent about any pain, his tolerance highest of anyone you’d ever met. But you knew him, knew him down to the soft scarlet places protecting his heart and everything was hurting for him. You could tell. With your hands fluttering around his bloodied lip, he smirked and cocked his head to the side.  
“Breathe angel, I haven’t seen you take a breath since you got here. You’re scaring me, come on...” And he let his cut up knuckles hover against your neck, thumbs pressing flat into the hollow spot where your collar bones met.   
“Ash, stop.” You grabbed his wrists, trying your best to ignore the raw tingle the skin there was buzzing. Turning your cheek away from Ash’s fingertips, you closed your eyes. Felt the tell tale burn of your eyelids when tears were on their way. You could feel the mood shift there inside his chest. Felt it in your own.  
“Hey, y/n...don’t play like that.” His voice was fixed on worry.  
“I’m not playing Ash, this is fucking serious.” Your eyes popped open, locked and loaded on the hazel facing you.   
He dropped his hands, away from your cold and close to his beaten warmth. His ego and his pride. Shook his head and rolled his eyes, breaking the contact you were holding in cupped palms.  
“Come on, it was just a small fight.”  
“Small,” you spun around and paced toward Mikey, who remained amazingly silent in the doorway, watching. You almost forgot he was ever there. You threw your arms up and over your head, the hollowness in your chest hypocritically heavy. Tossing an incredulous look at Mikey, you scoffed.  
“Small! He says it was only a small fight. Teeny tiny,” you said, voice biting and eyes squinting at the pinch of your thumb and forefinger. Showing just how minuscule the brawl was with your hands. Instantly, Ashton barked back.  
“The asshole swung at me first! What was I supposed to do, huh? Be a little bitch and take it? Go running with my tail between my legs? Fuck no.” He was shouting now, the cracks of red around his dimples opening up and bleeding. You felt sick.   
“You probably well near killed him, didn’t you?” You demanded, arms crossed rigidly tight to your chest.  
He only cleared his throat and looked down at your tapping foot. Jaw clenching and curls draping over his eyes, he didn’t answer.  
“Didn't.....you....” You tried again, the sound peeling its way between your teeth. Michael cleared his throat this time, stepping forward and thinking it best to mediate.   
“You guys, let’s all calm down-”  
“He’s getting stitched up right now.” And there was your answer.  
“Fucking hell, Ashton.” You rubbed your face hard, shaking your head and taking a deep breath.   
“I know. I’m sorry.”  
“Not good enough,” You replied curtly, hands smacking against your bare legs, sending the hem of your skirt up for a split second.   
Fed up. Done.  
“Baby-” Ash was really trying now, his face gone soft. Eyes no longer sheathed in his stubborn angst, walls coming down. He looked scared. Still angry of course...but out of fear.  
Michael chose to leave then.  
It was like a show down in some old, spotty western film. The murky grey walls suffocated any noise floating around his curls, and your spinning anxiety. His chest rose and fell at a healthy pace, his body so strong and young. A precious thing he couldn’t seem to recognize. Rubbing the sweat from your palms and onto your thighs, a meek slice of skin on skin broke the silence. And because he was still as a statue or unreachable star, you spoke first.    
“You can’t keep this up, you know that right?”   
He nodded before you finished.   
“I do,” He muttered. You laughed humorlessly.  
“Okay. So, this is the last fucking time Ash. The last.”  
He took tentative steps forward, eyes not daring to cast on yours. Hands looking empty if they weren’t filling in the cracks with your body.   
“Last mother-fucking time.”  
“I can’t take anymore blood,” you told him, tears manifesting in your tone. That made Ashton take bigger steps.  
“I know you can’t, you poor thing. Why do you bother with me?” Your bruising and battered boy yanked you in by the curve where your butt turned into thigh. You planted your hands flat to his firm chest, not surprised in the slightest.   
Not one bit.  
“I don’t know...” you whispered into his jaw. He was so close now. Ash ran his nose against your cheeks, his breathing languid. Lips licked wet.  
“No you don’t, but you always fucking loved me. Always, baby.” He nuzzled at your ear, the words and heat from his throat water-falling all over you. Into you.  
“I’m so angry with you, Ash,” you trembled, grappling with wanting to kiss him into the lockers and shoving him back. Away.  
Ashton chuckled. His hands squeezed the fullest part of your thighs hard. You couldn’t hold in the gasp that now trickled against his cherry stained scruff. The blood below the surface pulsating in your legs. Under his nails.  
“That’s it, my little one. Get angry with me, won’t you? Get pissed.”   
“Sh-shit.”  
Ash had one hand kneading your right thigh, the other skidding up and under your skirt, rubbing you through your panties. As you wound your arms around his neck for balance, he hiked that thigh onto his hip. Strode backwards and let his tender shoulder blades bang against the forest green metal. His middle finger shoved aside the cotton, sliding in straight away. Both of you were hidden behind the showers, shaking and dripping...  
“Ash!” You squeaked, spit bubbling and popping at your lips and onto your boyfriends jersey. His lucky number 13.  
“Get so angry it hurts, y/n.” Ashton was the only sound you heard. Not the wind rustling against a vent or a dog yipping across the street.  
Not the footsteps making little tap taps getting closer and closer.  
Only Ash.   
“Get mad.”  
_____________  
Three fingers knuckle deep and his hair tasting like honey, Ashton chuckled. You froze.  
That laugh belonged to an egomaniac. An exhibitionist.   
“Ahem....” Calum feigned a cough into his fist, leaning against the doorway casually.   
“Jesus...fucking...” You reached down, trying not to whimper when his fingers slid out of you quickly. Your boyfriend just smirked and licked his fingers clean. Your cheeks burned hotter than an ant under a magnifying class on black top.   
“Sorry to interrupt the...well, the finger-fucking,” Calum was a ball of sunshine, a child eager to run into the ball pit. To destroy.   
His pitch black curls strayed to the right side of his head. Sleep lines were rivers on the map of his cheeks. Napping in class, you knew all the boys did it. If you weren’t dripping down your legs, you’d find the superiority to roll your eyes.  
“And I mean that,” Calum continued. Walked closer, legs straight and wading out. Ashton nodded at the ground, as if having a heart to heart with his best friend.   
“I’d be fucking pissed if I was that close to the big guy. Mistah O.” The smart ass signed the name in the air between you three. An autograph. Crowning himself the moniker of orgasms in general.   
“Mmm...humble. Classy.” Your tone flat. Eyes much more dry than any other part of you.  
“Hey. Thanks.”  
“Clever too.”  
Ashton adjusted his hard on in his shorts. Cleared his throat simply to clear it, cheeks no pinker than what was natural. Rested and bruising by the second. A perfectly content boy.   
Calum’s eyes lost a little of the light they held a second prior. Knocked down a few millimeters. Nothing he couldn’t bound over in miles. Cockiness was a disease, you swore it.   
“Listen, I have news.” Calum looked at Ash now, the mocking tone gone. Ashton looked up from the cleats he was stuffing into his duffle. The blood crusted curls falling over his eyes.   
“What is it?”  
Calum shifted and clasped his hands together at his crotch, legs spread wide.   
“Kingston’s planning some bullshit at tomorrow’s game.”   
“We’ll fuck them up then.” Ashton shrugged, arms looking even more tense then when braced at the sink. Gleaming with sweat and nose bloody.   
“Ashton.”  
It wasn’t enough to make you feel in control, but just enough to get him to slow down. He looked at you under the crimson on his cheekbones, busted lip taking more abuse from his teeth. Cal scratched his stomach and smacked his lips. You could smell the rice crispy he just ate, he was that close.   
“Baby, I meant figuratively.”  
“The metaphoric fuck up, if you will.” Calum supplied, hands cupping the air, like the title was his infant. A precious invention. He was mad, just not a scientist.   
“I will not,” you said, hostile. Arms crossed and thighs squeezed together. All arousal gone. Smoke and after burn.   
Calum clutched his chest, as if he had pearls. Mouth open and brows knit.  
“Y/n, you really do cut deep. I’m bleeding out here.”  
“Fuck off.” You pushed off the lockers, not looking back at your boyfriend. Heard his footsteps and rustling bags close behind.   
You didn’t have to peek over your shoulder to know that Ash was sharing a look with Cal. Having a conversation between two handsome sets of eyes. Splitting lashes with terrible judgement and morbid plans. The boy spattered in his and someone else’s blood. Out for more.   
Your car sealed off any outside noise, keeping the stale taste of blood you licked off of Ashton’s laugh nice and fresh. You didn’t talk. Didn’t smile.  
Didn’t make it home before you made it to the backseat, parked just around the corner from his house. After, you didn’t kiss his forehead. He didn’t mind. Really didn’t.   
You drove home singing to the dash, his ache settling deep in your legs. He texted you at 1 am, when you were rubbing lotion on your legs. Yawning and folding your Stats homework safely away.  
“Remember what I said? Before I rubbed your pretty pussy?”  
His text was weak and lazy, not specific in the slightest. But you knew. And he knew that. A fucked up symmetry of a butterfly with broken wings.   
“I’m still mad.”  
You turned your phone off and set your alarm, glowing green numbers in swallowing black. Eyes of a monster, sniffing flesh.  
You remembered. He didn’t need to say that he loved you before slipping inside his front door.   
You always fucking loved me.  
He didn’t have to say it. He just had to mean it.  
And he always did.   
You fell asleep at around 1:30. There was still red under your fingernails.   
_____________  
“Yeah? You liked it, huh?”   
“I did,” you grinned, fingers twirling the end of your hair. Your back pressed to the cool trunk of the willow tree. Off the soccer field by mere feet. The boy had dark chocolate hair that seemed unable to decide on which direction to go, eyes big and dark.  
He smirked, then shrugged. “I’ll give that book one thing. Alice was fearless.” He said the word as if it was a gift to be such a thing. Being scared of nothing was being scared of everything, in your opinion. So you didn’t smile.  
“Is it surprising to you when girls aren’t scared shitless?” You questioned and cocked your head to the right, palms pressing into the scratchy bark behind you. Pinned between your lower back and the tree.   
The nameless boy just blinked, obviously taken aback. Insulted even, to be considered anything other than “Prince Charming.”   
“What’s that supposed to....?” But he didn’t have the guts to finish that question. Flirtatious means would always have precedence over truly challenging a girl intellectually. He wanted a number and he’d only leave once you broke the not so sad news to him that Ashton existed.   
You just smiled and crinkled your nose playfully at him. A cat batting it’s sharp claws at the poor little mouse. A stupid mouse.   
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”  
Insult was back. His features twisted in a swirl of moronic shock. He clearly didn’t face much opposition very often.   
He opened his mouth to speak but you stopped him with an index finger between you two, and your head shaking. Smile big, eyes full of amusement.  
“Boyfriend.”  
He walked away quickly.   
Shamelessly satisfied, you leaned back into the tree and closed your eyes, letting a big breath out. A minute went by before you felt two big hands wrap around your waist. You jumped for only a split second before you recognize the rough knuckles and greedy grasp. Your eyes can remain closed; you know your boy.  
“Baby.” Ashton mutters with that pre-game edge cutting his tone like a serrated edge.   
You turned in his hold, taking his clean jaw into your palms. No blood. But scrapes and cuts and a few bruises dotted the skin still. Remnants from a beaten past.   
“Good luck sweetie,” you smiled and leaned forward slowly. Ash closed his eyes and smiled like a kitten. You pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose and he rubbed the softest part of your hips. You sent him off with a gentle push and just one warning. It would be his last.  
“No more blood.”  
_____________  
The game was going well. Calum was full of assists and Ashton was racing across the field as if he’d be recruited by a scout after the first time out. He made 7 goals and it was officially a run away just 15 minutes in. You were sat in the front row of the bleachers, clapping and smiling and feeling a handful of fond in your chest and stomach. Ashton’s smile and unruly curls matted with sweat brought back the butterflies. Michael had a lot of jokes and Luke was in a giggly mood. It was perfect, until the second time out.  
Michael and Luke left to get some snacks and you snapped open the spine of your mystery horror novel. No more than three sentences in and he taps your shoulder.  
The same guy from the tree before kick off. Big eyes and leaning too close to you.   
“I love that book.” He’s too loud and too eager. You blinked at him and gave him a weak smile. Going back to the pages without a word, you hoped he’d finally get the hint. One of the many. Not interested, buddy.   
“Hey, I’m talking to you...haha,” he pushed on, reaching out to nudge your shoulder.   
Hell no.  
“Excuse me. I have already told you that I’m with somebody, and I am not interested. Now please...leave me alone, and do not touch me.”   
“Whoa, sorry princess.”  
“What did you just call me?” You hissed and turned to fully face him, standing up now. People around you were staring or laughing and whispering. Nervous and hunger for more. They’d sure get a fucking show if this prick didn’t stand down soon.  
“Princess,” he spat, eyes growing darker as he too stood. “But I should’ve gone straight for a more accurate word. Bitch.”  
And Ashton was already stomping close enough to investigate the creep hitting on his girl to have heard that. And Ashton was already dragging him by his hair down to the pitch of the field and sending a blow hard enough to kill into his abdomen. And Calum was sprinting over to help when the boy sent an uppercut into Ashton’s once healing jaw. Breathy boys covered in grass and dirt and now...blood.   
You stood as if in a slow motion wave of rain falling to earth. The crowd was all arms and hair and elbows into your sides. You felt the screams tear through your throat but couldn’t hear much besides the ringing in your ears.   
“Stop Ashton! Stop! You’re gonna kill him!” Mixed with a wobbling bass deep and fat enough to smother you. Ringing, ringing, ringing in your brain.   
It’s coach and the team severing your boyfriend from his bloodied face and throwing Calum off to the side along with him. It’s the chanting that makes you sick. It’s dragging yourself into the locker room to cry and shake all by your lonesome.   
It was all of that blood. That....fucking....blood.   
_____________  
One hour. One hour and about ten minutes before Ashton stumbles into the girl’s locker room, where he had seen you wander into. His grass stained legs and arms blur the lines you once held so dear as his battered body brings him to you. A foot away and he’s smart. He knows he’s not allowed any closer.   
Silence that could kill. A boy that almost just did.   
“I’m done.” You say. Flat.   
What’s left of his wits evaporates like a cannabis trail as he paces forward.   
“Baby-”  
“I’m fucking done!” You scream it. Didn’t know how loud a scream you were caging in your chest until it claws it’s way out. The sound echoes throughout the grey walls, a faucet drips in the corner. Down the drain...  
“I’m so sorry I...I didn’t mean to get so out of control.” He’s near tears. Pulls at his hair desperately and rubs his face hard. Mixing the blood on his hands with the type that only he can make. Someone else’s identity on his skin, forced from them by his own pride induced rage.   
“You’re a killer.” You growl, stepping away. And that makes him stop moving altogether. He looks at you like you might’ve just lined an arrow with his heart, ready to let the string snap from your pinched fingertips.   
“Don’t look at me like that.”  
“Like what?” You croak.   
“Like y-you’re....” He swallows; it’s all he can do to get out the words.   
“Like you’re...afraid...of me.”  
You’re backed up against the lockers, parallel with cold steel and a cold heart.  
“I fucking should be.” You whisper.  
He steps forward. You whine. Another drip down the pitch black witch of a drain, drinking the wet. Sticking to the moldy walls.  
“But you’re fucking not. Not scared at all baby.”  
Your neck is stiff but you shake your head. Big doe eyes cast up at him as he gets closer and closer.  
His hands unzip your skirt and his fingers whisper across the hem of your panties. You squeak out what you can and rub your forehead against his chin. Mumbling something like “I hate you...”  
Speaking into your ear and biting the edge,  
“I hate you too.” There’s no smile in his voice. Nothing but the broken rasp that only comes from wearing out your lungs. He did that somewhere between sprinting across the soccer field and throttling the lights out of the boy.  
He’s as serious as you. Always has been.   
Fingernails with blood underneath then, he fists the material of your underwear and rubs you hard through them. “Hate you so much.”  
It’s angry and it’s rough when he pulls your hair and sucks on your neck. You’re pushing his chest only to yank him back in and kiss him. Lips smashing against his to add more bruises and tongue licking hot and wet with a pattern of chaos only you two could make work.  
A frenzy of breath and gasps and moans and he’s three fingers deep into you, thrusting his fingers powerfully. Taking his hand from your hair, Ash lifts you up the lockers from under your butt, forcing your skirt askew and past your belly button. He has your tits out and perched atop your bra, the white button up undone and getting hopelessly wrinkled.   
“I love you, I love you....fuck you....”  
It’s your voice but it’s his heart that’s breaking at the way your clenching around his fingers and squirming in his hands.   
It’s quick and it’s sloppy and it’s your forehead pressed smack against his.   
And it’s over with before you can adjust to his fingers slipping from your body.  
Ashton stares at your eyes and you stare at his bloodied lip.   
He never could say the words.  
He just had to mean it.   
_____________  
“What are we going to do?” Ashton asked after you cut the engine and with it the feeble radio in your car. Parked outside of his dark house. Parents asleep and maybe his father is waiting with his fists in the dining room. Maybe he’ll finally hit his son hard enough to cause irrevocable damage.   
You take almost a minute to think of an answer.   
“Nothing.”  
Ashton breathes louder, picking at his nail beds mercilessly. Stalling or invested in fixing this with you, you didn’t know.   
“Nothing...?” He repeats it as if it’s a question. As if you and him weren’t synonymous with oblivion. You just shook your head.  
“Go. Just go Ash.” You’re voice doesn’t break. Not yet.  
He’s crying now, and you bite your cheeks as hard as you can without bleeding, fighting the tears. He looks up at you, eyes shining and hands shaking. You grip the steering wheel for dear life. There’s a sprinkler gurgling, broken, at the edge of Ashton’s mother’s finely preened lawn.   
“And Ash?” You say. He blinks slowly and you make eye contact for the first time in what seems like months. Truly looking at each other, still petrified, but doing it anyway. Braving it.  
“Yeah, hun?”   
“Run Ash....you run when you get inside. Get past him....and you run.” Your voice breaks there. Ashton shudders, lips parting and a bubble of spit popping, mixed with the salt of his tears and the bated fear in his saliva. He nods.  
“Okay.”  
And suddenly your watching him walk up the wet steps of his porch, and it’s a flash of his curls on a sunny day.   
He’s reaching for the door and it’s his first piano recital.  
“Run baby...” You whisper, heart hammering against your chest. Your bones.   
He’s disappearing into the darkness of his house with walls too strong to break through, and it’s his bloodied scalp and dimmed eyes.   
You can’t hold in the sobs any longer, and the dash of your car listens to your confessionary as a silent judgment. Maybe Ashton will show up to school tomorrow with dead eyes and you’ll never get his anger ever again. You’ll lose that childish pride and the way he interrupted your sleep with a restless body.   
Maybe his father will have beaten that straight out of him like the janitor swatted at the cobwebs in the hallway with a broom. Perhaps the pincers of reality would finally break your neck and you and Ashton would look at each other with your corpse eyes.   
Maybe, maybe.....maybe.   
Ashton doesn’t show up to school the next monday. Or the next however many the world has to offer.   
It’s senior year and he’s been gone for how ever many months it takes to convince a helpless girl that sometimes bad, rotten people have kids and don’t treat them right.  
It’s a beautiful, sunny day that would cast a gorgeous glow on dirty blonde hair, and your PE teacher has one request.   
“Run.”  
You find it somewhere deep inside of you to move forward, crossing the thick white stripe of paint that is the finish line. It hurts and your lungs expand the best they can for you. Just like they always have. Classmates chat and cars whirl past the chain linked fence. It’s the blood in your cheeks and thighs making you blush. It’s the bloody fingerprint he left on your hip and the corner of your mouth.  
“Why do you bother with me?”  
“You always fucking loved me.”  
“You’re a killer.”  
“I hate you.”  
“Run.”  
He never could say the words. He didn’t have to. He just had to mean it.  
And he always did.   
And he should have ran.  
He really....really...should have ran. 


End file.
